~ politics for the people

All smiles: George Osborne is happy because his hidden tax credit trick is going to harm hundreds of thousands of hard-working people.

Why are we discovering this only now, months after the plan to cut tax credits was introduced, after it was opposed in the Commons and overturned by the Lords?

This is a Tory trick that will harm nearly a million people, and Labour, the SNP, all the other opposition parties, and the Upper House have all let it pass.

John McDonnell might now be saying, “There will be many Tory MPs who told their constituents that their Chancellor was not cutting their tax credits who’ll now be left looking silly,” but it remains a fault of the Labour Party that this “hidden” trick went unnoticed.

MPs of all colours need to understand – right now – the fundamental principle of UK politics: Conservatives lie.

They deceive, they dissemble, they obfuscate. They present themselves as doing one thing when in fact they do another.

That is why every single piece of Tory legislation has to be subjected to the closest, most rigorous examination, checking for every possible end result.

And then the Tories must be challenged on every tiny detail.

Labour – and the SNP and all the rest – have been far too trusting.

So have the UK electorate – and we are being penalised for it every day.

It is long past time we all woke up – and wised up.

Hundreds of thousands of workers face being clobbered by Tory tax credit cuts because of a little-noticed change that survived George Osborne’s U-turn.

The Chancellor claimed he was scrapping tax credit cuts which would have seen 3.2 million families lose an average of £1,300 a year.

But the Mirror revealed on the day of his U-turn how changes to the ‘income rise disregard’ would still go ahead from April this year.

Now official figures show the policy, which says how much income can go up by before tax credits are recalculated, will hit nearly a million people after it is widened to affect more families.

Handed to an obscure House of Lords committee , they show the Treasury plans to rake in £935million using the income rise disregard over the next five years.

Next year the figure will be £170million – around £210 for every one of the 800,000 claimants affected.

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All those voters that sleep walked into this conservative persecution at the last election, will now be waking up and wondering why there is austerity only for the poor and disabled and wondering why they are allowing the suffering to carry on.
Labour has got to wake up, they are just not proactive enough in asserting their anti austerity corbyn mandate policy. Labour must do what Nicola sturgeon had the guts to do – take them on!

I was with you right up until you mentioned Nicola Sturgeon.
She’s not an MP, but she is leader of a party that does have MPs – none of which appear to have spotted this problem or raised it.
Is that really taking on the Tories?
No.

I’m really surprised at this because I remember McDonnell’s response to Gideons budget, and I remember something about the fact that UC would make people worse off. McDonnell mentioned about analysing the details, so this does surprise me.

Certainly that creepy sneak and his civil servant mates have slipped in a poison pill without any challenge which will be a total financial pain to a lot of “hardworking” folk……I note the Camoron does not use hardworking any more in his lies as most now know he
is just full of wind. Yes very disappointing vigilence feels like folk were asleep on the job or could not be bothered to read the small print. The review committee may also have been biased or poorly manned by the oppositions with specialist folk who know the actual implications with regard to all things benefits and tax credits. Perhaps when they introduce new legislation there should be major executive summaries of all changes and certainly who the lead participants were and their expertise on the reviews. Bit like the Freedom of Information Committee situation being compiled of anti FoI biased leads.

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